For me Desktop environments are overrated. I like Trisquel 5.5 Gnome as much
or as less as I like my XFCE desktop over at my Xubuntu Box.
All I need from a DE is:
- "Taskbar" which I can move either at the top or bottom of my screen
- Startmenu which integrates to the taskbar and all applications installed
via package manager automagically appear in the startmenu
- Option to drop links for quickstart to the taskbar.
- Configurable symbols for stuff like mixer, network connection and such.
In my scenario LXDE, MATE, Gnome3 Fallback or XFCE will all do their job
(more or less).
Much more important for me are features like a powerful terminal program and
a good filemanager (multi-tabbed, menu for user-defined scripts / commands).
With some cool icon sets, wallpapers and theme pretty much any WM / DE out
there can be made looking cool.
For me Gnome 2 was nice and I got used to it but it is not mandatory.
Only those DE following a new UI paradigma (Unity, Gnome3 Shell) simply suck
a big time.
Just my two cents,
Holger
